


After

by reynabeth



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Goes with It's Quiet Uptown from Hamilton, Implied depression and PTSD, Mentioned Reynabeth, Not specifically mentioned but implied, Other, Platonic Jeyna
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-15 23:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7243924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reynabeth/pseuds/reynabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day after Annabeth dies, Reyna stays inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ShutUpPercy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShutUpPercy/gifts).



> IF YOU CAN LISTEN TO IT'S QUIET UPTOWN FROM HAMILTON WHILST READING THIS There's so much angst in this oh my god but happy birthday Katy I really hope this is alright as a present aaah

One day after Annabeth dies, Reyna stays inside.

It's sunny. A beautiful day. That's ironic, she thinks. Everything she's built herself up around has just come crashing down, and yet the sky is still happy.

\------

Five days after Annabeth dies, Reyna opens the window a crack. It swings wide open. A rumble of thunder sounds like a cymbal crash, and sheets of rain come lashing in. How apt, Reyna thinks. She stands by the open window and lets the rain pour in, soaking her dirty pyjamas and greasy, unwashed skin.

Her feet are bare. There's dirt between her toes. Reyna wonders if it's left over from that day, the day everything went wrong.

She goes into the bathroom, leaving the window gaping open. There's a brush on the side, a scrubbing brush, the kind that's used for cleaning underneath finger- and toenails. 

Reyna takes the brush. She begins to clean her feet, rubbing at the skin, scraping away the dirt. It's soon clean, but she carries on with the brush, scrubbing and scrubbing until the skin's red raw and sore.

She drops the brush, the clattering sound it makes loud in the silent house.

\------

One week after Annabeth dies, Reyna packs up her stuff, hands in her resignation notice to the Senate, and moves into the city. The Senate allow her to leave due to the "severe trauma" she has experienced.

Reyna thinks that sounds far to scientific, and with far too little words, too. You can't describe the agony of death with just a phrase. You can't describe the feeling that a limb, a vital organ, has just been torn away; the feeling that you're bleeding out moment by moment, but you have an infinite supply of blood, an infinite amount of pain.

She takes to sleeping outside. Her new house is smaller, but it has a balcony. She can just fit lying down on the balcony, if she curls her legs up. There's enough room for a blanket and pillow and, if she lies on her back, she can see the stars at night. It's a game of connect the dots, and the constellations are the finished pictures, leaping out from the smooth dark page. 

Sometimes, Reyna wonders if Annabeth's up there, in the stars. There's one star that shines nicely, but only sometimes, and sometimes it's hidden behind clouds. It's not as bright as the other stars, and they far overshadow it, but Reyna thinks maybe it's Annabeth.

It brings some relief from the pain, but not much. Not enough.

\-------

Two weeks after Annabeth dies, Reyna walks up to the Garden of Bacchus, and she sits there until long after dark.

The sunset is beautiful that night, or at least it should be. Yellow and pink and red streak and splatter the sky like bloodstains, like blood staining the grass, draining from a gaping wounds, like the agony of pain, dirt, dust, blood -

Reyna turns away from the sunset. She closes her eyes, but she still doesn't cry. She hadn't cried since it happened.

Only once the sun has finally dropped beneath the horizon, drooping like a wilting flower, does she look back at the sky. 

Why did Annabeth have to die? Reyna thinks, and she's shocked; it's the first time she's used - that word - since it happened. There's a sudden stinging pain biting at her hand; looking down, she sees bloodied crescents cut into her palm by her nails, squeezed together tightly.

\-------

Three weeks after Annabeth dies, Reyna spends two hours walking around the city in total silence. People avoid her like she's got a disease they're afraid of catching, and she knows what they say about her behind closed doors. I heard she tried to kill herself after the other one died. Well, I heard she hasn't showered since it happened. Yeah? I heard she killed her father; maybe she killed the other one too, in a fit of madness.

It doesn't hurt her. Nothing can hurt her.

Reyna goes back to her house. There's a shrine in her living room (it came with the place). It's dusty and neglected, but not unusable. Reyna kneels down in front of it and, for the first time as long as she can remember, she prays.

\------

One month after Annabeth dies, the pain has not yet eased, and Reyna receives a visitor. 

There's three short, sharp knocks on the door; at first, Reyna's sure it's her imagination, because nobody comes to see her anymore. 

But then, several minutes later, there's another series of taps. Reyna hauls herself out of bed, where she's been for two days straight, and drags herself down the hall - if only to tell whoever's out there to go away.

When she finally wrenches the door open, though, the words die in her throat. There's a boy - a man, really - standing on her doorstep, wearing a crooked smile and too much hair gel. A suitcase sits by his side; it's battered and bashed, like it's been through a lot, which, to be fair, it probably has. And his eyes - Reyna recognises those eyes, knows them like she knows her own home. She used to liken them to chips of ice or diamond, but now they look more like a lake after the winter freeze, or the dancing blue light inside a flame. 

"Jason?" she says incredulously, because sure enough, Jason Grace is standing in front of her, with his melted-ice eyes focused right on her.

"Hi," says Jason. "Can I come in?"

"Jason, I really don't think-" Reyna cuts herself off, slumping heavily against the wall. She looks up, meets his eyes; for a second, they look like Annabeth's, and she feels the sharp, metallic tang of pain all over again, just for a moment.

"Please? I have a lot to say."

"Okay," says Reyna. "Okay. Okay." Then, "The house is a mess." She doesn't bother apologising.

It's only when they reach the kitchen that Reyna realises her hands - no, her whole body - is shaking. She stumbles on her way to the counter, clumsily putting the kettle on. "Reyna?" Jason says, gently.

"Yeah?" She looks round.

"I - uh, they, um, told me about..." He shuffles awkwardly on the spot, pushing his hands into his pockets and staring at his feet. "About Annabeth."

"Oh, yeah?" says Reyna, without turning around.

"Yeah. And - I'm really sorry. I know you two were really close, and-"

"More than close," Reyna interrupts. "I know - I knew - her better than anybody else, and she knew me." She hunches her shoulders, closes her eyes as if to beat back tears, but no tears come.

"Oh, Reyna. Oh, gods, I'm so sorry." He pauses, his words hanging in the silence. "I'm so sorry about everything. I've been a terrible friend. A total jerk. I should never have done what I did. I wish I could make it up to you somehow, but I don't think I can - look, I'm so sorry. For everything." 

"You said already." Reyna turns, and Jason's taking a step towards her, arms outstretched. 

"I missed you," he says, and Reyna realises - with horror - that he's about to hug her. She shifts back.

"When did I say I forgive you?" she snaps angrily.

Jason backs away. His face is a picture of disappointment, sagging like the strings that held it up have snapped. "Oh," he says. "Oh." Reyna feels cruel, unnecessarily so, but just for a moment.

"I'm sorry, Jason, but I need more time," she says feebly. Then, "Get out of my house, please."

"Okay." 

Reyna turns back, facing away from him. She hears his footsteps - shuffle-tap, shuffle-tap, shuffle-tap - and then the door creaking open. A second passes, like he's waiting in the doorway, and then there's a quiet slam. 

Reyna exhales shakily, and then leaves to go back to bed.

\-------

One month, two weeks and three days after Annabeth dies, Jason returns. Reyna's been counting the days she spends in solitude. She hardly ever goes out anymore.

Jason crunches his way up the little path outside her house. Reyna waits, breath baited, until she hears the tap on her door.

When she lets him in, he's smiling, and his melted-ice eyes are alight. "I know you didn't want to see me again," he begins, without even taking off his coat, "but I have a great idea."

Reyna looks at him, opposite her in the cramped space of her hallway, and raises an eyebrow. (God, it feels like a long time since she's done that.) She doesn't say anything, though.

"How about we go for a walk? I need to talk to you," he finishes excitedly.

"Oh, I don't think so," Reyna says dismissively, but Jason holds up an insisting hand. 

"When was the last time you went out? Come on, just this once?"

Reyna sighs defeatedly and tugs on her coat. "Ten minutes. That's all you've got. Ten minutes."

The city is very big, and Reyna feels very small. The stares people are giving her and Jason aren't helping much, either. "So," says Jason, dodging an oncoming cyclist. "Have you considered therapy?"

Reyna stops dead. "Sorry?" 

Jason pales. "I just mean - to help you get over Annabeth - you might need some help, that's all."

"I don't need help." Reyna starts walking again, her unbuttoned coat buffeted by the breeze. "I'm fine."

"Right. Right." Jason hurries to catch up.

"I just need time, that's all." Reyna realises they've reached the entrance to the Garden of Bacchus; she ploughs on ahead up the steps, Jason trotting after her.

"I know." There's something in Jason's voice, some hidden tenderness, something like the glimpse of sunlight through trees, like the feeling of passing through a warm patch in cold water, something that makes Reyna turn at the top of the steps and look back.

"Oh, gods," Reyna says. "Oh, gods."

"I'm so sorry," Jason says in a sort of breathy gasp. "Reyna, I'm so sorry." He climbs the last few steps and just falls into her arms, as natural as coming home. Reyna's taller than him still, but only by a centimetre at most; she wraps her arms around him and clings on tightly. 

Jason's back is shaking, and Reyna thinks he's crying. She doesn't cry, still, but just holds him tighter, and they stay like that until the evening swallows the sun, and the stars emerge. 

"Reyna," he says brokenly.

"I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you." Reyna repeats the words like a mantra, chanting them until they lose all meaning.

Eventually, they break apart. "Where are you staying?" Reyna asks.

"I'm, uh, renting a house in the city," says Jason hoarsely, with a crooked grin.

"Okay." Reyna steps back. "I might stay here a while."

"Sure. See you soon?" Jason reaches out a hand to touch her shoulder, and this time Reyna doesn't step back.

"Maybe," she says, and turns back to the stars.

\-------

Six months after Annabeth dies, Reyna is sitting outside on her balcony, and she's thinking about love and loss and all that comes with it, and she looks up and sees Annabeth's star, and that's all it takes. With a desperate gasp, the tears come, and she shudders apart right there under the stars.

Reyna thinks that grief is like when she learnt to swim. At first, she spluttered and gasped and coughed and struggled, and it took tremendous effort just to get her head above the water; then the more she swam, the better she got, until she thought she was okay, even though every now and then a huge wave would come and push her under for a few moments.

Right now, she's drowning in tears, her body wracked by huge, hacking sobs. She's crying so much, she can't even get a lungful of air, and her face and shirt are soaked through with tears. And then the actual tears cease, but she can't stop the agonising dry sobs, choking her in pain.

She curls up in a little ball, and waits for it to stop. 

And eventually it does. The awful noises subside, and her breath returns, and her cheeks dry tight and salty, and she's laying there with a heart full of pain in her chest and a sky full of stars above her head. 

\-------

One year after Annabeth dies, Reyna decides it's time to move on.

She flings open the cupboard under the stairs, and pulls out multiple orange plastic Sainsbury's bags. Yanking open the knots at the top, she can see every photograph that she's stuffed away in there, most of them related somehow to Annabeth. 

Jason drives over to her house to help, put-put-putting up the drive in his beat-up old pickup truck. Together, they load the armfuls of memorabilia onto the back seat.

"You ready?" says Jason.

Reyna nods, not saying anything, and climbs into the front of the truck, breathing in the familiar smells of petrol and spilt coffee. She leans her head back, closing her eyes, and inhales deeply. "I'm ready."

Jason drives her, without a word of complaint, out of the city and into the edges of the hills. The world blurs past, like a pastel drawing that's been smudged and blended together. Eventually, he draws to a halt, and Reyna gets out shakily.

They're on the edge of a clearing, and less than ten metres away is a huge, messy stack of wood and paper, reaching up into the sky. Reyna reaches around, takes one of the carrier bags, and pulls it open. Her fingers graze over the pictures inside, and tears rise in her chest, but she pushes them back down.

"Would you like to do the honours, Reyna?" says Jason, coming up behind her.

"Indeed I would." Reyna turns, takes the matchbox from his hand, and strikes a match. With a hiss, it catches alight, and Reyna tosses it forward onto the pile of dry wood. 

She watches the tiny flame crackle and spark and grow, and it's not long before the whole pile goes up in flames. Reyna inhales. Exhales. Reaches into the plastic bag.

She removes a picture. It's a photograph, taken of her and Annabeth; Reyna's smiling, with her arm around Annabeth, and the other girl is laughing at something off camera. Reyna stares at the smile, the laugh, just for a moment - and then she steps forward and feeds the photograph to the blaze.

It's gone in seconds, shredded to ash; Reyna thinks this feels like a respectful way to say goodbye.

She snatches up another picture, and another, and another; soon Jason comes forward to help her, and together they say goodbye, as the fire eats the photographs, tongues of flame licking the sky.

Finally, the last picture shrivels to dust. Jason places a reassuring hand on her shoulder, and together they watch the smoke spiral into the sky.

\-------

One day after Annabeth died, Reyna had stayed inside. The sky had been bright, and her world had been dark.

Reyna wishes she could go back to that day and say, Look, it's going to be okay. Everything's going to be okay.

And yes, Reyna has her ups and downs. But she's living, she's breathing, and that's enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading; leave kudos or a comment if you enjoyed? Thank you!


End file.
